With no new commissions, tutus or pattern request and Kijiji ads going slow I have succumbed to the urge to help out somehow with finances. The big question has been HOW? Well, I have and answer. For the rest of the month I am going to do my very best to have us eat home cooked meals. No take out, less junk and all filling.

I am going to spend the weekend making my menus. Of course this is AFTER the super deal at IKEA.  I figure some baking over the weekend of some of my healthier treats: applesauce muffins, banana cookies, maybe even something with the fruit I have in the freezer with help as well. With 6 full appetites and myself eating more while breastfeeding we so eat a rather large amount!! I have an amazing recipe for beef and gravy courtesy of my step mother we haven’t had in ages. And two recipes for pancakes. One applesauce, the other brown flour.

We made a stop off at the Bulk Barn to get some of our favourites… Egg noodles, shell noodles, chicken broth powder all at a terrific price. We got Ken’s cheese puffs and my yogurt covered peanuts. I even snuck in some real fruit gummie bears. Oh and don’t forget the sour dough pretzels!

Bulk Barn stash

IKEA meatballs was so worth it!! For under 12 dollars all 6 of us were fed. 6 meatball platters, one bowl of amazing soup, a cinnamon bun and 2 refillable drinks. AND it was eating out!!! Almost worth the drive the  the south end to take advantage of the sale one more time before the 4 days is up!

Proof

Yum!

Echo slept through the entire thing and most of our running around chores. Ken managed a little treat for me today – I got “the hat”! I have always been a lover of hats but in recent years could never afford the cute ones. This one was under 20.00 and everything!

The hat

Today the BOYS got mail. Their Grandpa Reinsch/John in South Carolina (my dad) sent each of them a card and some money. They are VERY excited that once we convert it to our currency they can each have a new toy… another new toy.

Thank you Grandpa

Last night I got in a enough time to make up one set of barrettes… I made the candy corn ones from this pattern. Pretty good for a first go. I cut out all the pieces I need to make Trinity a bunny clip but it was going to take too much time and Echo was up off and on being fussy most of the night. There are a couple other patterns on that site I would like to try out, though some require ribbon I don’t yet have.

Candy corn

Saturday is looking like our day to  get things done – we need to put together the twins’ old bed in Emanuel’s room and move that bed into our room and convert it to a crib. With taking today off we are determined to finish our frog lapbook tomorrow. It is bigger than I expected and the boys are very pleased. We are going to put up a poster paper for our Spring poster already with all the pretty foam flowers on our table.

Now I have to go start that meal plan for the week… hopefully we can stick with it!!

Hat thief

The tooth fairie was SUPER tricky last night and managed a quick sneak into the twins’ bedroom and then stashed a car under Gavin’s pillow – all without waking him! Of course VERY shortly after that happened great shouts of joy and a 5-10 min discussion of said toy was heard coming up from the basement. Gavin even came up after midnight to SHOW us the car! He was VERY impressed that the tooth fairie managed to do all this (and take the tooth) without him hearing her!

the packaging

Homeschooling came to a grinding halt today when I went downstairs after lunch to check on the play room. Apparently cleaning meant hiding things UNDER, BEHIND and BETWEEN things instead of in the appropriate boxes. We really don’t have enough containers but that does not mean we don’t have a perfectly good container WITH A LID for Legos, the same for other things. So instead of frog folder assembly right after lunch the twins were sent downstairs to learn responsibility for their toys and that everything DOES have a place and that place is not a pile in the middle of the floor.

Post clean

Before lunch all 4 kids sat down with markers and coffee filters again. Emanuel had not had the opportunity to make a coffee filter flower yet. So we now have  4 more flowers. I am well on to having a lovely dozen of those to put on the dining table. And then maybe getting the table cleaned off and having us ALL sit around it.. though I am short a chair. We really need to do some garage sale hunting and find ourselves 6 chairs for our table.

Pretty!

Our newly revised schedule for the weekend is starting to look a little busier. So far Friday is an at home day for us – we have to finish our frog projects, clean up and sort through our drawers (I think we are keeping too much now as the drawers will barely close!) and discuss what we want to focus on next. But we have postponed our IKEA day to tomorrow as well. The boys were just too difficult and naughty to justify our going. A BIG frustration for me as I REALLY wanted to go today but we have to punish accordingly.

Working on frog lapbook

Saturday is a big cleaning day for us. But Sunday we have our zoo trip to visit the frogs and then it is looking like Ken will be helping Ada and Nathan move to their new apartment over by The Mall. Well until 6pm that is when he has to be home to meet up with some friends online. Which brings us to Family Day Monday and Ken’s suggestion that since (at least right now) it looks like it will be slightly warmer weather he may just take the boys sledding. I don’t know if we will include Trinity in that but I am sure she and Echo and I can find something fun to do here. Poor Echo gets chilled easily so I don’t want her out for a long period of time, but I am hoping to put her in her snowsuit and get a picture of her out in the snow… just a brief picture and then back in she goes.

I did do up some 6 month pictures today, in her “I was born in” t-shirt. I think I got a few keepers… in her cloth diaper no less! Though I did cover her legs… she has long skinny legs just like the others (except Emanuel who had long chubby legs) did… she may not be tall in the end BUT she will be leggy!!!

Sitting tall

Profile

With diaper

We are working on a new plan clutter wise… since the kids make almost ALL of their stuff here in the home it mostly ends up living here. We simply do not have the room so a couple times a day the twins are sent down to their rooms to go through their clutter – each time at least one item has to be set aside to donate, gift or toss out. That way we only keep what is truly useful and special.

I am going to sit down and make at least ONE of my new barrette patterns tonight I think. It is not something I can do with the kids up as I have to use the glue gun (I would like to replace my low temp gun with a high temp but have yet to look into cost difference). So with some spare time on my hands with our not dropping by the Dollarama today or yesterday to get the containers for the new toys I guess some crafting and ordering of pictures is what I will get going with!

One more

…#2! One day late but I rushed that entry yesterday so I could have time with Ken to celebrate Valentine’s Day! So sometime in the near future this will be the photo gracing our family wall!!!

5 yrs old!

I cannot believe he is so grown up! Looking back at his baby curls and pudgy cheeks he is so big now!

I can also finally share what I made Ken for Valentine’s Day… a Welsh Love Spoon. I found the directions to make a VERY simple version here. Some day I would love to buy him a REAL spoon like the amazing ones in this gallery. I used the symbol chart included on the UK site…

My Welsh Love Spoon for Ken

For Valentine’s Day supper we had delivery Chinese. I tried onion cake (yummy) and we had won ton soup, spring rolls (so good) and then a beef or chicken and lemongrass bowl with vermicelli. It was so filling, we had enough left over for the kids to enjoy as breakfast  this morning!!! Our usual special date tradition – a picnic in the living room.

Valentine's Day supper

Another of my eBay purchases came today. The most expensive one actually. I spent around 8.00 on lengths of coloured ribbon. 15 different colours that I am already concocting hair clip plans for.

Echo stole my ribbon!

So, the step by step instructions for yesterday’s coffee filter flowers:

First you need coffee filters, markers, a towel, spray bottle and pipe cleaners. You take your coffee filter and on one side colour a design or pattern.

Colouring

Once that is done you lay the filter flat on the towel and spray it with enough water to dampen the whole thing and make the colours run.

Spray bottle

After the water dries we rolled or squished it together and then tied the centre with a pipe cleaner.

Finished

I think this would be a neat way to talk about absorption or even to show colour mixing. We used these flowers to talk about giving presents for Valentine’s and how the ones we made looked like other flowers – like roses.

We spent the bulk of our homeschooling time finishing up our frog activities. I found two site with some wonderful frog information. Weird frog facts, and All About Frogs for Kids and Teachers (although there are some word and sentence errors on this second link as well as some dead links). We did most of our frog learning online this time round due to an issue with my library card but it has been fun. YouTube is full of videos (once you weed out the ones that are just cruel or stupid) and we have had fun looking online at pictures of different frogs. The plan is to make our way to the zoo on Sunday to see what we can learn about their frogs there.

The kids have been using the books I got everyone for their birthday party. Zander’s is a colour by numbers which has him practising sounding out the words for the colour names so that he knows on his own (for the most part, I mean BEIGE how is he going to get that one?) what colours he needs for his pictures.

Zander and Trinity

I finally have all the information I need for my stepsister’s wedding sampler. The logo for the portion of the air-force her husband is in, the colours she likes, the names they use… the date… now to find a spare minute with Ken to sort it all out! Oh and a trip to the local thread store to pick out some blending filament (what can I say I love the shimmer – it is so worth the frustration). My goal is to mail it off in enough time to allow for framing if they want, but basically to be SURE it makes it in time.

We are planning on taking advantage of the meatball deal that starts on Thursday at IKEA – 10 piece meatballs with mashed potatoes only 99 cents! The kids (and Ken and myself for that matter) LOVE their meatballs! Tomorrow we are supposed to head to The Mall and wander around T&T and check out different Asian foods. I need more soy beans and the kids would love a dragon fruit. Now to just get through the evening without the kids coming out of their rooms a dozen times… please?

Yours truly on Valentine's Day